The collection showed how Raf Simons is pitching the label somewhere between Andy Warhol and Ralph Lauren.
Photograph: Diane Bondareff/AP

Raf Simons’ mission at New York fashion week is simple: make Calvin Klein great again. In the cultural battlefield that is the contemporary US, a sleeping giant just woke up to stake a claim for what Americana looks like now.

Calvin Klein is an American icon. Back in the glory days of the USA that Bruce Springsteen sang about in 1984, the name transcended jeans and underwear to become a byword for youth, sex and style. It morphed into part of the vernacular, from Brooke Shields’s infamous “Nothing comes between me and my Calvins” ad to a cameo role in Back to the Future. The newly appointed Belgian designer Simons, fresh from success at Christian Dior and Jil Sander, intends to put Calvin Klein back at the heart of Americana.

In the cavernous Calvin Klein building near Times Square, the first outfit on to the catwalk was a pair of red trousers, with a white polo neck beneath a neatly tucked blue shirt. These stars and stripes colours, with their shades of Kellyanne Conway’s marching-band aesthetic, were soundtracked by David Bowie singing This Is Not America and set against a new installation by artist Sterling Ruby, whose work addresses issues of American identity and economic decline.

There were no slogan T-shirts in the show. But by creating high-taste fashion out of the most popcorny elements of US culture – the male models wore the kind of heeled boots the Fonz used to wear, while women’s coats came in Little House on the Prairie quilting – Simons set out a vision for Calvin Klein that framed America as something highbrow and refined, but – crucially – refused to cede the aesthetic middle ground.

The show was an invigorating moment for the New York fashion scene. Simons looks to be pitching his Calvin Klein as somewhere between Andy Warhol and Ralph Lauren, and masterminded a front-row scene that left no room for doubt that this show was the place to be. So packed were the white benches that even Gwyneth Paltrow dared not risk giving up her place for fear of being unable to squeeze back in, and instead mouthed ‘I love you’ at Sarah Jessica Parker across the catwalk as they waited for the show to start.

At the end of the show, after Simons and his creative director, Pieter Mulier, had taken a bow to raucous applause, Shields – star of the Calvin Klein adverts three decades ago – leapt from her seat to greet Millie Bobby Brown, the Stranger Things actor who stars in Calvin Klein’s newest campaign. “Oh wow, I’m so excited to meet you,” said Brown. “No! I’m so excited to meet you!” replied Shields.